I'm glad you seem to have figured out a solution, though I will repeat that getting it right really just takes practice. :] The first thing I ever crocheted (as an attempted project) was a relatively wide scarf in single crochet that just kept getting wider and wider as I went on. Eventually I realized that my tension kept getting looser, so I frogged it and started over. Eventually I managed to get something figured out, because it finally stayed the same width.

I want to finish this. I really do. I want to do 2 more changes of color (for a total of three stripes of purple), because I think stripes always look better in odd numbers. *sigh* I will finish it, one day.

Artistically, things do actually look better in odd numbers. It's just one of those funny things. If you were to go through paintings that are generally considered to be really good, and you counted how many times an object occurs in the painting, more often than not it'll be an odd number.

Anyway, your blanket is looking really great and I wish you the motivation to get it done. I have one in the works, but I have to finish another afghan (for a friend) before I go any farther with the starghan. >__>

Looks amazing, I love it. And you finished it pretty quickly, too. (I'm in the progress of making a blanket for a friend, out of granny hexagons. And let me tell you, it is chaos trying to do that and schoolwork at the same time.)